Ed Board Admits To More FOI Violations

Another school board committee admitted that it violated the state’s open meetings law.

This time, the Board of Education’s Teaching & Learning Committee said that it didn’t post an agenda and minutes for a special meeting, held in early April at 2 o’clock on a weekday afternoon, that set the committee’s priorities for the coming year.

This Tuesday, a day before a scheduled hearing at the Freedom of Information Commission’s offices in Hartford, a mediator for the state agency helped both parties reach a settlement. It reads:

• “Respondents acknowledge that, on April 3, 2018, the Teaching and Learning Committee convened a special meeting and that no notice was posted on the school district’s website 24 hours prior to such meeting. Respondents acknowledge that their failure to properly notice the special meeting was a violation of Sect. 1 – 225(d), G.S., of the FOI Act. Respondents acknowledge that they failed to create meeting minutes for the April 3, 2018 special meeting within seven business days. Respondents further acknowledge that their failure to create meeting minutes and properly post such minutes was a violation of Sect. 1 – 225(a), G.S., of the FOI Act.”

Upon signing of the agreement, Christopher Peak, a reporter who filed the case on the New Haven Independent’s behalf this spring, withdrew his complaint.

The settlement followed closely upon a hearing officer’s finding that the Finance & Operations Committee also violated the law by not amending the agenda before discussing new business and by whispering during a public meeting.

A six-page description of what happened at the two-hour meeting, which was attended by three school board members, two dozen school employees, the city’s youth services director and a political activist, has now been posted on the district’s website.

According to those minutes, the committee discussed why so many students are struggling in their freshman year of high school and what can be done about the transition. By the end of their first year of high school, 12.9 percent of New Haven’s last class of freshmen missed out on a credit or failed a core class, a five-point improvement from the previous year, the state said.

The efforts to ease the transition to high school will be supported by a grant from The Dalio Foundation, a charity run by Ray Dalio, the billionaire hedge-funder who founded Bridgewater Associates, and Barbara Dalio, the founder of the Connecticut RISE Network, whose collection of data on Hill Regional Career High School students was highlighted at last month’s Teaching & Learning Committee meeting.